This issue's production coincided with Valentines. That Feast of Saint Valentines we love so much! As you all know Saint Valentine was imprisoned for performing weddings for soldiers who were forbidden to marry. Before he was executed he sent a letter to the jailors daughter signing off "from your valentine"!! Moral of the story, if you are romantic then you will be remembered even if you do break all the rules! What a feast we have in store for you this issue!

Firstly, it's the big thumbs up to Gilligan! What a talent he was, what big shoes has has to fill, oh how he will be missed. Bless his cotton socks. We take a little time out to say thanks, say a few words, remember ... erk he only stood down already so you are allowed to say your piece too and he gets to read it ... yay! For those who need some background click here.

Secondly, Metsfanmax goes under the microscope. It covers everything from the Planck epock to nuclear fusion!

Thirdly, we have a bewildering array of articles. From the new (Ask Aunt Squishy), to the old (Meet the Tourney Winners - this week Junior Bee), to the borrowed (a multitude of clan updates), to the blue (all that work in the Foundry!). Now if that's not a marriage of talent then nothing is!!

Lastly, your chance to shine. We look forward to your feedback, comments, brick-bats and bouquets. Send your sweet Valentines to any of the newsletter editors. Better still, be their valentine and offer your *wink* assistance! Always looking for talent, providing you a chance to give something back, so share that budding writer inside of you! The chances of you being jailed and executed are not great

Hello again Freestyle readers. I'd like to take this opportunity to recognize the many contributions that Gilligan tirelessly nurtured for the community. From both the immediately visible ones like special events to the day to day operations of managing a mod team, Gilligan approached all of them with class and tact. His work and dedication stand as an example of what it means to be a moderator on Conquer Club.

Gilligan will long be remembered for his tireless work in the Special Events. He was responsible for organizing and monitoring many of the special events for the last few years. From the map contest of Easter 2012 to the organization of the Halloween Mafia game for 2011, Gilligan has been the catalyst for Special Events and he ensured they all ran without a hitch.

Gilligan also contributed to the Entertainment team in a less visible but equally important way. He meticulously kept track of community interest and involvement in the special events and the other public projects of the Entertainment team. By providing and organizing the statistics of community interest, Gilligan allowed us to see which activities drew more interest and which were relatively less popular. His willingness to hunt and calculate these numbers help the Entertainment Team tailor its events to better appeal the community at large. His many contributions to the community can be represented by his 14 General Contribution medals (tied for 3rd all time!) which reflect his 4+ years of involvement as a moderator.

Want to get into the Mafia scene, but don't know how to play or even what it is? Consult these threads: Mafia Information, Mafia and You, and Rules and Terms of Mafia.Too much work? Too lazy to read through everything? No worries, you can always jump right into a game and ask for other players or the game runner to help guide you.

What is "Mafia"?Mafia, for those of you that don't know, is a game that generally takes place in a town, where the townspeople have to determine who the mafia (or "scum") is and lynch them via a majority vote during the day and the mafia try to kill everyone at night and bluff their way out of getting killed by the town.

Mafia NewsLovecraft Mafia has finished, and after all the dust has settled, we had many winners. With multiple factions and changing win conditions, / has modded one of the most entertaining and complex Official games ever. A great time was had by all.

Mafia CalloutsCalling all players interested! Some mafia games need some filling:

Advanced Roles and Strategy by safariguy5A variation on an enabler is discussed this issue.

The Switch

What is It?The Switch is a role that can choose to enable or disable all players with a given role. The player is given an option every night to either switch on or switch off all powers that night.

ExampleAlice is the Doctor Switch and Bob and Jane are doctor roles. Alice switches off the Doctor role that night. Bob and Jane do not successfully protect their targets that night.

How to Play this RoleThe most common Switch role is that of Town Vigilante Switch. A bad Town Vigilante can be a big detriment to town, so the Switch can limit the damage of the Vigilante and give the rest of Town a fighting chance. Should the Switch be Anti-Town, care must be taken to ensure that it does not unbalance the game. A possible way of incorporating an anti-town switch is to give mafia the same role. For example, both town and mafia could have a Watcher role and mafia could have a Watcher Switch. This allows the anti-town faction to tactically decide when to use the switch.

Hello Folks, TheSaxlad is back with another tasty article for you to sink your teeth into! Just before this issue I logged onto the forums and found this rather tantalising post by our beloved Community Admin rdsrds2120. In it he starts the rumour (which of course we now know to be true) about some new medals coming out! For those of you that haven't seen them, and that can't be many I admit, look below!!

Shiny Eh? Anyway, to coincide with this launch... actually as close as I could make it coincide, I had a look at the top 6 medal hunters on CC, which (when I sent the PM out) were TheCrown, Gilligan, L M S, DJ Teflon, Chapcrap and tokle. I really wanted to gain these new medals, but not really having medal hunted before I didn't know how to start... So I thought I start from learning from the best!

So I asked these players a number of questions about medal hunting, and got some answers back from four of them, so here is a selection of what the four said!

1.Why/When did you decide that you wanted to start medal hunting for Golds?

Gilligan wrote: I had been on the site for quite some time before medals came out (just about two years) and some of my medals had already stacked up. At that time there was only standard, team games, cross map, ratings, assassin, speed and terminator. I had gotten a few Tournament Contributions by that time as well (in my prime!) and decided it'd be fun to catch 'em all. It's also how I generally play video games, try to get everything.

Sounds like he'd be a real Pokemon fan to me! Chapcrap also had a "catch em all reason" to start gaining his medals,

Chapcrap wrote:I wanted to get one of all the medals, so I joined a clan so that I could get team medals. While in the clan, we had a list of people in the clan who had the most medals. So, I wanted to get to the top of that list.

However some people are so good, they don't even need to try!

tokle wrote:I have never really medal hunted, I think. The amount of medals is mostly from playing and hosting too many tournaments.

2. What strategies did you try in the beginning to medal hunt, did they work, did they not work? Also did you finally settle on a strategy for hunting medals, or is each medal different?

TheCrown wrote:I joined mass amounts of games of 2 types of medals I was after at the moment. And would make some games myself, that would hit 2 or 3 medal types that I needed.

This answer seems to be prevailant throughout the "pro" medal hunters, Gilligan agreed with Chapcrap and said,

Gilligan wrote:Each medal is kinda different...mainly the medals that can be doubled up.

Chapcrap wrote:In the beginning, I got teammates to help me get medals. Like nuclear and the team medals. That was helpful because you didn't have to work on your own to win games.

3. I see a lot of people who are claiming to get medals foeing people, why is this?

All the interviewee's have one simple answer for us!

Gilligan wrote:Unique defeats...

Chapcrap wrote:To get medals, you have to beat different people. So, once you beat someone, if you foe them, then they don't join your medal games. So, it helps get medals quicker.

tokle wrote:Because to get the medals you need a certain number of unique kills. Playing gainst the same opponent over again doesn't count towards gaining the medal.

Simples! So if you are on the end of a foeing, it might not be your fault! Its worth adding too, that once most players have their medals they remove people pretty quick from their foe list!

4. What do you think the best strategy for medal hunting is- if you could start again how would you go about it?

Chapcrap wrote:The best strategy is to try for multiple medals at once. So, you can play doubles, random, trench, nuclear, terminator games and work on six medals at once. If I could start again, I would work on medals sooner. In the beginning, I didn't really try for medals. I just played a lot of games on Feudal War, AoR2, and American Civil War.

Gilligan wrote:Find a map that intertwines good gameplay with a variety of medal options and just stick to it.

TheCrown wrote:Go for 2 or 3 medals at once.

tokle however, has some words of wisdom for all of us,

tokle wrote:Win games!

Well folks, that concludes our interview, Id like to say a big shout out to all the interviewees for being such good sports, and to end this article, ill leave you with their wise words, but for now adios, amigos!

TheCrown wrote:Medal hunting was about a year process to finish them out. they are not easy.

Hello everyone, I plan to make this a monthly or bi-monthly feature to keep people updated on what is going on in the site's largest and most comprehensive indepedant award service. All information and questions about the awards can be found: at this link.

January was a big month as we had our first ever voting period. 5 of the awards were voted on and those winners were officially announced on February 5th. The status of official announcements is still incomplete, but work is progressing. You can see the winners and the pms to the winners by clicking the above links.

Don't forget that for the awards to really work, some community input is needed. Running throughout the whole year are nominations threads for Mafia Awards, Forum Awards and Tournament Awards. Of course, if you want to send me a pm or wall, I can add nominations for any category.

One other thing to remember is that not all of the awards are handed out at the end of the year. Some of them are handed out whenever it is called for. The Clan Awards can be handed out whenever a clan is deserving and there is a special Lifetime Achievement Award that anyone can nominate, for anything.

Some people are wondering what happened to some of the 2012 categories. The forum awards were met with some complications and not enough input (as in zero input) from the community and were abandoned. The newsletter awards I abandoned just due to the sheer amount of effort in reading and choosing an article. The tournament award was abandoned for a combination of these reasons. To help keep abandonments low, I am going to keep a monthly update on the tournaments, suggestions and newsletter articles that caught my eye during the year. Note that these aren't official nominations, just a short list.

Suggestions:cooldeals again, for his free speed games getting implemented (regardless of the original poster, I am keeping internal consistency)Fazeem for Select Amount of Starting PositionsLord Bremen, for Ally Auto WinDoomYoshi, for Allow Users to Choose Nicknames

Newsletter Articles:Retrospective of the Year by koontz1973 (not to say that there aren't other great articles this year, but I just read through the end of 2012 which had some really awesome articles, so only 1 makes the cut so far from 2013).

Recurring Series:Scum InsiderTournament TipsJoin This? Or Not!

Tournaments: Conveniently, the archive is organized based on which year the tournament is complete. Already this year, we have 171 completed though, so sifting through them will not be an easy task. Some early notable ones:Series: Zoom In, bluU; Mountain Combat, thecrown; Hold the Capitals, BluU; ENLISTED, jonofperu; HONW, DukasaurTournament/Innovation: Simply the best, plurple; GLGH, greenoaks; battles of napoleon, bluU; ATP by MoB Deadly (brilliant way to seed players); WKRP, First Anniversary, Dukasaur; Merry Grinchmas, viperoverlord; battle for the bonuses, elonpuckhog; WW2 battles, aad0906; sports: MLB, Viersomethingskiing, Soccer, Wait until next yearrescue: Open Centum, HA; CCDodgeball

Dear Aunt squishy:I want to ask you about something that has troubled me since high school. (No, not THAT! ) I find it incomprehensible that things perceived as good are sometimes called "cool" (cool car, cool kids, cool hat) and sometimes as "hot" (hot song, hot chix, hot dog). I was always taught that "cool" and "hot" are at opposite ends of the spectrum, and yet they are both used to indicate things that are better than others. What temperature, then, describes things that are worse than others? "Cold" and "warm" it would seem, but are not "cold" and "warm" also antonyms?

Also, is there an optimum temperature I should seek to maintain in order to be both "cool" and "hot"?

Please help.Dear Needing Help,

You poor thing, you still care about being cool? Dearest duckie, being cool is completely overrated. Having to maintain an image that coalesces with what your peer group thinks is the cat's pajamas is exhausting and reeks of effort. And effort is not cool.

As for the question at hand- I'm sure there some physics theory or philosophy tenet that would explain this concisely, but Aunt squishy thinks that when one is dealing with something irrational, one should not look for rational thoughts. If I've convinced you that being cool is ludicrous, then the descriptions of being cool are similarly ridiculous. They make no sense because being cool/hot/phat/etc. makes no sense.

Thanks for your question and I hope you devote your time to more meaningful objectives. Like moving numbers around on a computer screen to win at playing war.

Q. When taking a vacation would you prefer to take a cruise or stay in a hotel and sight see?

Hotel and sight-seeing. I wouldn't like being locked on a boat for several days at a time.

Q. What is it like having to deal with Suggs?

It's a lot of fun; see the answer to the question four above. I get the opportunity to play around with different site ideas and communicate with the developers about their implementation, but I don't have to code anything (I have to do plenty of programming for my real job anyway) and I don't really have to be strict with any users because most people in Suggestions are quite civil.

Q. Do you get a lot of repeat thread that you have to merge?

There are tons of repeat threads, but I rarely merge them; most of us actually hate that process. Lately we only merge for the really dead suggestions (e.g. resign button).

Mostly I just stop doing CC work when RL conflicts. Sorry, but RL comes first.

Q. Who is your all-time favorite Met?

See above re: why the Mets suck.

Q. What is your favorite map on CC?

Arms Race!

Q. If you could create a map, what theme or idea would it be around?

Nuclear fusion

Q. Will you make a usergroup for astrophysicists?

Usergroups need at least 10 people to get started.

Q. What is your favorite candy bar?

Now that I am vegan I don't really eat candy bars. Prior to that it was Kit Kats.

Q. What is your favorite website other than CC?

YouTube

Q. What's worse, losing to a cook in the final game of a tournament, or being forced to watch the Bill Buckner play?

Seamus needs to brush up on his baseball history

Q. Do you admit that Keith Hernandez was at his best when he played for the Cardinals? Carlos Beltran?

I think a fair case could be made for Hernandez, although he and his mustache had better stay in NY forever. For Beltran, I don't think a serious case could be made for anything other than his time in NY.

Q. Do you think there are a lot better people on this site to interrogate rather than yourself?

Do you mean who are better people than me, or better to interrogate than me? Either way, yes.

I have no idea. I don't recall playing anyone enough times to have counted this.

Q. What is your most embarrassing moment in RL and on CC?

This question requires too much thinking and I have a poor memory.

Q. Your interests (Astrophysics, chess), how would you describe yourself on a dating website?

I've tried to think about clever ways to do this, and given up. The only way is to be straight up honest and hope that there are girls out there that like really nerdy guys.

Q. With astrophysics, what do you think is the greatest discovery within your field is?

Objectively, I think that the greatest discovery of recent times is that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. I work on understanding supernovae, which are the events that were used to first figure this out, so it's quite important.

But I also think that the results of the Kepler mission are amazing, and sometimes I regret not deciding to go into the field of exoplanets.

Q. Are we alone? Is their life on Europa?

No (see above). No.

Q. Are you a happy chap?

I am a crap chap.

Q. What are the chances of you getting any of the new medals?

Zero. I don't play enough games. I don't even rate people.

Q. What makes you come back day after day?

The intrinsic fulfillment I get from simply being part of a welcoming community.

Q. What other websites do you frequent? Any good porn out their? I only ask as you seem to not of had sex in months.

I play chess on gameknot.com. Other than that I don't spend much time in other communities, but I am often perusing the new papers on my field on the arXiv.

Q. Favourite cartoon?

South Park

Q. Favourite film?

The Shawshank Redemption

Q. Now using those two as a guide, which character would you like to be?

Cartman.

If I had been interviewed six months ago I might have chosen something different, for staff brownie points.

Q. How good are you at...catching questions?catching trains?catching colds?matching hats?thatching huts?cracking nuts?

Excellent.

Q. What's your favourite A-League (Australian) Soccer Team?

Where is Australia?

Q. Why don't you hang out with AoG?

He's too short.

Q. If you could be God, and arbitrarily set any value for h, and then be yourself, and live in this alternate physics world, what value would

you set?

We physicists routinely play God and set h = 1 to make the calculations simpler.

Hello again my friends, and welcome to your favorite part of the Newsletter, "War Games", where you can find information about CC Tournaments!

I think we can start to be optimistic that the tournament world is at last regaining momentum. This is the first time in a long time that I have seen the Create/Join a Tournament forum go to two pages. The Ongoing Tournaments forum, which has been oscillating between 9 and 10 pages for a few months, seems to have solidly settled on 10. Mind you, this is still a long way from the 13 pages that it was when I joined CC, but I believe that the long-abused optimists of CC are seeing vindication.

We have plenty of interesting features for you in this issue. First, I speak to tournament winner Junior Bee. Then, I have a look back at the original tournament Hall of Fame, one of many projects that our recently-retired department head, Gilligan, worked on during his extraordinary career as a CC volunteer. Then, out of the sadness surrounding flexmaster33's retirement, Dave takes inspiration for another great installment of his tournament tips. Dave also updates the TPA situation.

Finally, we have Join This? Or Not!, the longest-running feature in the newsletter. Sadly, this is the last time that it will be authored by WorldCup4James. James has decided that the conflict between academic achievement and Conquer Club will be resolved in favour of academics, and in all good conscience I cannot disagree. I wish him well in his studies, and I will certainly miss him around here. It is always sad to lose a volunteer, but someone as good as James is a hard act to follow.

On Wednesday, January 16th, Junior Bee was declared the winner in my History of Nuclear War III tournament. The finale in this series of tournaments consists of a grueling set of 9 simultaneous eight-player Terminator games, and this one was incredibly close. Junior Bee edged out PaRKoN by a score of 17 to 15. I resolved that I would speak to him about it for the Dispatch.

Dukasaur: Junior Bee, thank you for talking to me. First I'd like to talk about that History of Nuclear War tournament, and then we'll turn to some of your other triumphs. So my first question is, at what point did you realize that you might win, and how confident were you about that?

Junior Bee: Thank you Dukasaur for putting on a great tournament, It was certainly a very close battle. I knew I had taken the lead at one point about half way through the series of final games. I think after that I was targeted by some of the other players and consequently eliminated from the last few games.To be honest I assumed I would be overtaken on the score board so it came as a great surprise to find out that I had held on for the win.

Were you dismayed by a finale that consisted of nine games at once? I'm always frightened when I make those, but so far nobody has refused.

I try to keep my games count to a manageable amount and the nine games certainly pushed it way up above my usual level. You have to play the tournament for the best part of a year and survive nine rounds, so I can't imagine anyone then turning down the opportunity to play in the final.

Only 2 days after winning in that tournament, you won another: 313s Patch Wars DE. Was that quite the high, winning two tourneys in rapid succession? Did you go out and celebrate?

Yeah for sure. I haven't won many tournaments and you get a good sense of achievement for winning one. Some of the records of the other players I see playing tournaments regularly are fairly awesome.

Actually The History of Nuclear War Tournament was one of the first tournaments I entered. I didn't play tournaments in the first year I was on Conquer Club but when you get started it does gets addictive. So winning two tournaments together definitely called for a drink or three to celebrate.

Looking at your list of Tournament Cups, I see that 4 are 313's DEs, 1 is a KISS, and the HNW is the only one consisting of multiplayer games. Do you join more 1v1 type tourneys than multiplayers, or is it just the luck of the draw that you've won more of them?

There seems to be a lot more 1v1 Tournaments and I have played more of them. They are over fairly quickly and I find they are a good way to get to know a map. I like 313's DEs because you get a second chance. I have been knocked out in the first round and made it a couple of times to the finals the long way but not won that way yet. I think multiplayer tournaments are harder to win and can last a lot longer but I like to play a mixture of all settings. and I hope I can win a few more!

Overall, what are your favourite map and settings?

I like playing all maps and I'm not a player who likes to play the same map over and over again. If pushed I would have to say my favourites are Waterloo & Austerlitz - must be something to do with cavalry. I like maps that have a variety of attack possibilities and complexity of movement. I also enjoy Connect 4, Eurasia Mini. Monsters, Cuban Missle crisis, Arms Race I've had some success with these and I guess you tend to like maps you do well at!

As for settings escalating is the most exciting when you get to the point when you think you can eliminate the field by cashing cards but very frustrating when you are thwarted by a single troop and lose 10v1 or something stupid. It can affect your whole day. I think we are all secretly waiting for that time when we get fantastic dice - a bit like surfers waiting for that special wave as in the film 'Big Wednesday' by John Milius (1978).

The turn like no other turn or maybe we had a turn like that once and after that nothing ever seems the same.

I prefer multi -player games to 1v1 but I play 1v1 because they are easy and most of the time you don't have to think too much which suits me when I'm supposed to be at work or I've had a few drinks! They are a good way of losing points! I contrast I have just recently finished a no spoils game that lasted over a year and I have another flat rate game which is coming up for a year. They can get a boring! I'm getting into team games I avoided team games when I started because I was afraid of letting my team mates down. But its a good way to learn and you can share any success with others.

True indeed! Well, as we wind down, what could you say about CC in general?

Conquer club is a very competitive arena and that's what attracts most players, but without cooperation and effort of those putting on tournaments working together etc it wouldn't exist. So thanks to all you who do that.

Many players stick to certain types of games. Some higher ranked players avoid lower ranked in case they lose points ( and some use them to pick up points!). Other players stick to certain settings they do well in and often you get the same players in tournaments and certain types of games.

One way maybe to enable players to maybe try something different or even support new players is through the idea of a 'friendly ' match as they have in many sports ( CC is a sport!). In many games such as football (soccer) you can play a friendly match but no points/medals are awarded whatever the outcome. New players could use friendlies to get into CC, experienced players could support new players and they would be less likely to be farmed or be discouraged, players could try new settings or maps or just experiment. New players could just play friendlies for their first few games and deadbeating wouldn't be so much of a problem. More experienced player could be allowed a certain number of friendlies (maybe just one at a time) and this wouldn't be recorded and they wouldn't lose points. I don't know if this has been discussed before-? just an idea

The Halls of Fame are mostly automated, but it was not always this way.

The world of CC tournaments grew at a spectacular pace from its early origins in 2006. As tournaments gained official status, there was a growing need to keep statistics in an organised fashion. Early in 2008, Optimus Prime began a "Hall of Tournament Winners." This eventually morphed into a Hall of Fame that commemorated not only winners, but organisers too. He was assisted in this project by Night Strike and Gilligan. By December of 2008, Gilligan was maintaining the Hall of Fame by himself.

Some of those, like total tournament games created, are stats that we don't even keep any more. Throughout 2009 Gilligan did virtually all of the updating of the Hall of Fame manually, while more than 1000 new tournaments were completed that year! What a staggering amount of work to do manually!

On April 18th, 2010, the new Tournaments Database was unveiled. The maintenance of the Halls of Fame became mostly automated, and an era came to an end.

In this and a few of my next articles I want to pay tribute to flexmaster33 who has had to leave CC under very unfortunate circumstances. All of you that have played in one of his games series, such as 2012 NFL season, will know how detailed his tournaments were, following the schedule of game leagues and with professional looking graphics and quite complex scoring methods.

I have picked up the continuation of the above tournament of his and while I won't be able to continue it with the same level of sophistication as flex's, I hope that if I show you the system I use to simplify the running of such tournaments, it may encourage someone who does have these skills to run such tournaments in future.

The overview of his tournaments is as follows. In the usual way a set of teams is published and players assign themselves to one of the teams, either as individuals, as in the tournament I will describe, or as a team of players, and specify home map (or maps) and preferred settings.

The match-ups are formed according to the real league schedules and games published accordingly. The scoring on the tournament I will describe is according to the winning round, and then the results are published and the league tables updated with these results.

There are a number of elements that have to be linked; the league team to the player/s; the player/s to the games; the winning rounds to the score and the scores back to the team, via the player/s. For linking these I find the simplest function in Excel is the Vlookup function and the best tool in CC for completed games is the "Tour Stats" add-on that can by accessed by the tournament organiser in the game finder when the tournament is selected.

There are three screens obtained using this button; Tournament Summary; which links players to Number of wins and losses and any active games:

Tournament Results; which links game numbers to winning round and players;and Labels; which brings player data pertaining to the labels that the TO adds when creating the games.

All these forms can be copied and pasted (paste special/text) into Excel and then, using the VLookup function, all the necessary data for assisting the TO can be obtained.

I'll get into more details starting in the next issue.

(These "tips" started off as ones that I used to make it a bit easier in managing my own tournaments. Now, I am looking at other types of tournaments and scoring systems by all you innovative TO's out there. So, if you have a unique scoring system that you would like me to have a go at automating, please let me know and I'll be pleased to try and assist. Any queries on the above I'll be glad to respond to of course. Please note that I use Excel 2003, so there may be variation in the menu instructions if you have other versions of Excel)

It is all change at the top of the leaderboard as Night Strike's "School's Out For Summer" tournament finishes with Fyrdraca in first place; Swifte in second and swimmerdude99 in third. This moves Swifte into first place with 5,701 points ahead of Dowian2 5,420; barterer2002 3,423; enormastitz 3,278 and tin trumpet 3,053. The third place for swimmerdude99 moves him into 9th spot.

Merch313's tournament "Asia Terminator" has finished with ZionT winning. Results will be updated for the next newsletter as there is one game yet to finish that may change the lower placings.

If you want a tournament of yours included in TPA3 and it will complement the existing list of tournaments, then pm me! We do have a number of slots available now, so, if you are preparing to release a tournament, let me know and we could include it under the TPA3 banner. The thread for the TPA3 details is at:http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=89&t=175675

Organiser greenoaks wants you to know that ANYONE MAY ENTER THIS TOURNAMENT. It is TPA3 and spots are going fast, but as of this writing there are still about 14 spots available. Gameplay is Triples but you sign up as a single. Greenoaks will randomly match you with some very nice team-mates each round.

Take your significant other on a date--in the form of a Conquer Club tournament. merch313 presents this two-map Doubles competition complete with Fog and Trench to make your night extra Special! In what should be quite a large round-robin format, pairs will get plenty of games on the France and San Marino maps in search of triumph through love.

The classic European rugby competition "6 Nations" comes to Conquer Club in paulgamelb's Quadruples and Doubles tournament. Players sign up individually, representing one of six international rugby teams: England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland and Wales. There's a total of ten matches for each country, and each match is made up of a best-of-3 series, so there's plenty of games ahead! But over half the spots are taken so act quickly to secure your spot on the field!

draza123 invites 16 players for a 1v1 run across the seven continental regions of Earth. The tournament offers a variety of settings from Freestyle to Fog, but the dominant settings across most rounds are Sequential, No Spoils, Automatic and Unlimited. Players in the final will find themselves fighting on all 7 maps to claim the title!

This issue: We have new maps and old ones brought back to life in Maps in development for you whilst generalhead asks what you need before you start a map. Doomyoshi ran some awards earlier. The winner of the map one is below, but I just wanted to publish his letter. A wonderful thing it is as well. And finally, the contest is back. This issue, we have gone gilligan on you.

Have you ever thought to your self that you wanted to try your hand at map making. There are a couple of things that you need to do before you start the process.

1. Get over the intimidation factor: When I first decided to try my hand at map making I first went to the map foundry section of the forum. started reading through the tools and guide section. My first experience was fear and intimidation. Despite the fear and intimidation I decided to move forward. My fear and intimidation was squashed by the warm welcome I received from Koontz when I first posted My map idea. Getting past your fear and intimidation is your first step in creating your very own map.

2. Read through the Conquer Club Map Making Handbook. Even though a lot of the items in the handbook might be confusing now you will understand what you read later in the process. Reading the handbook will help you familiarize yourself with the process.

3. If you don't know how to work any good graphics manipulation programs you will need to practice and familiarize yourself with one of the accepted programs. Paint or any program like paint will not work. These programs will not get you the results you need to create a good Conquer Club map. some programs that are accepted are layer base programs. What layer based programs means is that you can have many pictures opened in layers in the program at one time. Some of these programs are Photo Shop and Gimp. Gimp is the most widely used program in the foundry. There is a good Gimp tutorial located in the map foundry tools and guide section. Gimp is the only free program available that I know of that has the layers funtion. You can download it off the internet at http://www.gimp.org/.

4. Familiarize yourself and practice the graphics program that you decided to use for your map making adventure. Run yourself through the natty dread tutorial a few times before your first attempt at posting an idea. The more times you run through the guide the better you will become. The tutorial will not get you a finished map, but it is a start. There are also many good Gimp and Photo Shop tutorials on youtube.

5. You will need to use a photo storage internet site to store your new map drafts so you can post them to the map foundry. I use http://photobucket.com/ but that is not the only site out there that does this. After you have your rough draft finished in gimp you will need to go to file/export to. Then you export the file to a location on your computer. The file will be saved as a png file. Next you go to photo bucket, sign in and click upload. Once the file is uploaded you go to your folder and run your mouse over your draft. You will see a direct link option. click on direct link and it will copy the link. When you go to post in the thread click on the [bigimg] button. You will see this [bigimg][/bigimg]. Then you click cntl v which is the shortcut for paste and you will see this [bigimg]http/mymappic.com[/bigimg]. click submit or preview and you will see your posted draft. Every time you draw up and post a new draft you will need to do this.

6. Find a unique idea: There are over two hundred maps on this site. If The same map was made over and over again with the same game play that would be boring. Here is a good link on how to have a good map ideas.After you have come up with your map idea you will need to do some research. If it is a historical war map you will need to watch documentaries and read whatever you can on the map you want to make. The more knowledge you have on your map idea the better your map will be. If you are doing a geographic maps study several different maps so you know the map area that you are working on.

7. Once you have studied your map idea and have created a rough draft it is time to make your first post. You will need to post your your first draft in Map ideas. Befor you post in map ideas you will need to read This. Follow the instructions on how to post your map idea and then you are on your way.

That is it on how to start your first map. Here are a few additional notes that I will not go into too much detail on. This was an article on how to get started. One day There might be a tutorial that takes you on the journey though the foundry process.

If your first map idea doesn't get accepted don't worry. The mods and community are there to make sure a good map gets made. There are rules and regulations about what maps and type of maps can get made. Make sure you don't go into too much detail on your first draft because you don't want to spend too much time on the map idea draft if the idea might not get accepted.

You will not be alone in the foundry process so don't feel like you will be alone. The mods will be there to have your back and help you to make the best map you can.

Your map will remain in map ideas until your ideas is accepted and your draft is good enough to to be moved into the drafting room. You will remain in the drafting room until your draft is good enough to receive the draft stamp and that is when you are moved into the main foundry section of the map foundry. Next is the game play stamp which approves the game play for your map. Next You receive the graphics stamp. Then the xml stamp. Then the beta stamp. Then a quenched map.

One more think to think about is are you going to do the xml coding your self or will you have a map partner to do this for you. There are two map medals available per map so you can always bribe some one to do the xml for you. If you decide to code the map yourself it is simple programming. Nothing too complex. There are XML tutorials located in the tools and guide section of the foundry.

The last bit of information That I will leave you with is this. The map making process is not an easy once. Making a map takes a lot of hard work. It is also a long process. making a map can take anywhere from 8 months to a year and a half. This all depends on how hard and long you work. You will need to have a lot of dedication and patience to make a map. When you have your name on a map and a map medal to show for it the process will all be worth it.

Congratulations to thenobodies80, as the Winner of 2012 DoomYoshi Award for Cartography, for his Map: Baltic Crusades.

Co-Recipients of the Award are ender516, for his contribution to the XML, and theBastard, for being the idea person. I am not sure to what extent this contribution was made, but I am sure that at least part of the excellence of this map owes its dues to each of the 3 recipients.

I respect the Foundry as the one area of the site where I am least qualified to help. As I could not (or will not) make a map, I am in awe of the creative process, and the community collaboration that goes into making maps. I also recognize that the sheer variety of maps, without compromising quality, are a major highlight of this site for many. In addition, mapmaking can at times seem a thankless job. Two of the nominees this year are no longer contributing to the site, so it is with additional admiration that this award is presented.

On the map in particular: It was not included in the originally press-released list of candidates, as I was going off of Koontz1973's list of maps of 2012. However, I saw no reason for it not to be contained, especially as that map had already impressed itself so deeply in my mind as an instant classic. The premise of the map is simple: take castles and towns for an autodeploy bonus. Since some of the castles straddle two territories they become doubly significant. Not only are they the chief source of income, they are in and of themselves strategically significant positions. This brilliant setup, combined with a bit of luck (the map is exactly the right size it seems, the territories just so placed as to be considered perfect), gave us a map that is guaranteed to keep its popularity in the years to come. It is not without faults, as no map can be said to be, but we are here to celebrate, not denigrate.

The other maps were also qualified contenders. The Dark Continent, although I have admittedly never played on it, strikes me as "the thinking man's map" and I can imagine playing a quick go on it with Winston Churchill and Henry Kissinger. Africa II is one of only 2 good maps (the other being my personal favourite: Christmas) to ever come out of the non-foundry process. With the recent moratorium on this aspect of the site, it will always be remembered as one of the only 2. Eurasia is also veritably a classic, although large maps don't appeal to everyone. Island of Doom seems a rather unpopular map, but it has a certain feeling of fun that can not be adequately described. Knights is a maddengingly simple map, and yet it is also maddeningly complex, a true paragon of strategy.

As a final note on the DoomYoshi Awards, please remember that they are non-official. They are an embodiment of the community thanking you for your contributions to the community.

Since the beginning of time, a man has walked among us. Some say he is mortal, but they would be wrong, some say he is a god, but also wrong. Still others say he is a man lost, forever destined to be entwined to Conquer Club, those ones may just be right.

On December 2008, Gilligan received the first of nine map makers medals. All have been given to him for writing the xml code that makes the maps work. Below are the nine maps with one minor difference made to each. I have hidden Gilligans avatar on each map (above). Find all 9 to grab your trophy. Be warned, they are not too easy to find but all nine must be found. You all have one week to try and find them. At the end of that week (from publication), I will put all correct answers into Random.org to grab our winner.

You must not post in the threads where they are. Not even clues.Send the answers to me (koontz1973) via PM explaining where they are.

Welcome to another jam-packed issue of clans, with Swifte giving us a double-dose of action in 2 different tournaments while Icky & Qwert round out our section with info about progress from ACC2 & CL5.

The Highlight however, has to be Grifftrons Video Prediction on the winner of CC3! He ends up giving Swifte's literary update a run for it's money.

Two semi-finals matches are well under way as we check in this week. Here's an update!

Semi-Final 1

vs

When we last checked in, TOFU was faster off the starting line and had taken a 3-1 lead. With 17 round 1 games now completed and two more finished from round 2, neither side has made much headway, with TOFU up 11 games to KORT's 9. Impressively, each side has managed to steal at least 4 home games from their opponent, which is really a testament to how evenly matched these clans are on any given map and settings. Master Fenrir of TOFU leads all players with 5 wins in 6 finished games, with Iron Maid keeping stride at a perfect 4 of 4. Set 3 games are filling and set 2 is well under way - should be fun to see how this one develops in the coming weeks.

At our last peek in on this war, AFOS had jumped out to a 7-1 lead. Undeterred, AOC stormed back and evened up the war at 11 games a piece. From the looks of it, AOC just needed some of their home games to finish up, as each team has now taken 8 at home and 3 away games. With 26 games now in the books, AFOS has pushed back ahead at 14-12. We'll know soon if AOC can keep pace with AFOS or if they've pulled ahead for good. It's early, but some players who are off to a good start include Belgian Blue, Hook, Jippd, JJ41375, slickstm (all of whom have won 3 of 4) and kjg21 (4 of 6).

Well things are continuing to progress at mixed speeds due to the absence of the TO but all look to be heading in the right direction. Updates below.

vs. Foed 12 - 8 MDThe official thread shows this as 12 - 8 but looking through the batch one games i'd say the first set is nearly complete and going to end up pretty even. If batch 1 is anything to go by I guess this will be decided by only a couple of games!

vs. RA 28 - 24 PIGSWell RA certainly have pulled out all the stops, and with another game looking certain to fall there way they will have 30 of the 31 points required to win the matchup. None of the others look decided yet but the PIGS will need every single one for a comeback!

vs. TFFS 0 - 0 1RFG (Starting)1RFG have now secured the win over AoK and I believe talks are commencing to get this delayed war underway.

vs. OSA 39 - 22 TNCOSA have managed to clinch this tie quite convincingly and will now wait to see if they'll be facing TFFS or 1RFG in the semis.

This week sign ups for Clan League 5 concluded and 36 clans will participate in CL5. With the participants determined, we had a seeding-based drawing event held in live chat. So many people came to watch the drawing for Phase 1 groups, that Live Chat even collapsed for moment!

Seeding procedure rules

7.SeedingsAfter the entry list is completed, clans will be ranked according to their CL4 results, and all the clans that hadn't participated in CL4 will be ranked below (A special exception was made for the Fallen, with them being given a combined waiting between their F400 ranking and their last place from the CL4 rankings for not participating in it. No adjustments were necessary for the other first-time League participants). After that, clans will be distributed in pots.- first pot will be made from top 6 ranked clans- second pot will be made from clans ranked between 7th and 12th place- third pot will be made from clans ranked between 13th and 18th place- fourth pot will be made from clans ranked between 19th and 24th place- fifth pot will be made from clans ranked between 25th and 30th place- sixth pot will be made from clans ranked between 31st and 36th place(in cases where there are more then 36 teams, a seventh pot will be created, made from all the remaining clans)

After it, the qualifying groups will be drawn by officials(CD's). Qualifying groups will have one clan from every pot (unless there are more then 42 clans applied, then there will be more then one clan from 7th pot). First, the top 6 clans will be placed into qualifying groups. A clan will be taken from first pot, then the number of qualifying group will be taken from another pot. Clan will be put in a group matching the number taken out. After the top 6 clans are distributed to groups, the same procedure will be repeated for the rest of the pots, until all the clans are placed into groups.Draw will be made online in Live chat.

Here is how the pots looked for the drawing:pot 1: <IA> <TOFU> <AFOS> <EMP> <KORT> <AOC>pot 2: <LOW> <ID> <OSA> <MYT> <PIG> <TFFS>pot 3: <LEG> <HH> <OTP> <DYN> <WAR> <VDLL>pot 4: <TNC> <TLW> <GR> <MD> <FALL> <FOED>Pot 5: <RA> <SOH> <LOTZ> <LHDD> <DBC> <MM>Pot 6: <MB> <CF> <DB> <AOK> <AQOH> <UM8>and after the drawing in Live Chat we got the following Qualification Groups:===============================================================================24th February is the official start of Clan League 5, so be ready for a fantastic new year in clan events.

The dust has nearly settled on the field of battle that has been Newcomers Cup 3... and a group of champions has emerged!

Finals

vs.

You could call them the most battle-tested clan on CC, as The New Crusade has completed the most wars of any clan in the last 3 years (and probably ever), but as contradictory as it may seem we must also call them Newcomer's Cup champions! TNC rode the wave of momentum that carried them to a 30-11 victory in the semi-finals over Igni Ferroque, to jump out to a 14-6 advantage in set 1 of the finals against The Fallen. With only 21 wins needed to win the Finals, TNC bought themselves some breathing room heading in to the second set.

The Fallen rallied in the second set, taking some early games to bring it back as close as 10-13, but the hole they were in from Round 1 was just too deep. With 34 games in the books, The New Crusade can safely be crowned champions, leading 21-13. Some top performers so far have been dana1971 (6-1, the only player with 6 wins thus far) as well as ckyrias and Epitaph1 each with 5 wins. Congratulations to all the members of TNC on their success!

Wow, I can't believe how much I appeared in this issue. Did not see it coming.

That tournament hall of fame is something that I wish wouldn't stay deep in the depths of the tournament archives...a sticky in General Tournament forum I think would be fantastic - considering the amount of work that was put into it. Eventually I forced Lack to install the Tournaments tab because it was just too much - you can see by the Tournaments by Month that it was not slowing down anytime soon, but even picking up pace QUICKLY. If there were 99 finished tournaments in Nov '09, I can't imagine how many would be in Nov '12.

The map contest was quite fun too - there was one that took me a little bit to find.